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The AEI/Brookings's joint energy and climate reset button is an accurate admission that cap-and-trade legislation is over in Congress for now. And while a new Congress may not have the appetite to develop a cap-and-trade program - which is very different than the cap and tax program many were considering - it's far from over in the eyes of the Environmental Protection Agency.

Within the taxonomical argument of what is or isn't a pollutant in excess levels, EPA's ability to either regulate carbon or cap it is still very much a reality. What remains unclear, however, is if the EPA has the ability to develop a mitigation program (the trade piece) for carbon.

If the U.S. will ever participate in regulating carbon utilizing mitigation, there is a common sense solution. Yet in the authors' drive to arrive at a new post-partisan consensus through a "limited and direct approach" to energy innovation, this report missed the literal forest for the trees.

The U.S. forest sector has immense potential to drive cost-effective carbon mitigation, which will in turn bring into being new economic opportunities for foresters, private landowners, forest product companies and others across rural America.

These pursuits will create jobs in the U.S. forest sector. University of Massachusetts's recent research found that sustainable forestry, forest restoration, and related activities generate 39.7 jobs for every $1 million invested. In fact, this return on investment was the highest number for any economic sector studied, exceeding even renewable energy and transportation infrastructure.

By failing to recognize this solution altogether and by leaving it unsaid, key off set market components that foster job creation and bring about carbon reductions through forest carbon sequestration are left at the proverbial wood pile.

And for a proposal - whose "heart is a $25 billion per year investment" - without any mention of off set market incentives for landowners - a fair carbon price to finance the report's "necessary investment" will never materialize and be sufficient for funding an ambitious federal program.

A strategy of this type is not just about carbon. It is about cooperative conservation, wetlands restoration, reducing oxygen deficiencies in the Gulf of Mexico, improving habitat for migratory birds and producing biomass for energy and biofuels.

There are lots of things that can be done on the same 43,560 square feet in an acre. And it's something our country should easily figure out how to do in an agreement, partisan or post.

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